The Queer Fat Femme Guide to Life

For those of you who don't already know, six months ago my fiance decided to end our relationship. It was a huge surprise to me, since a showy proposal 13 months before and a plan for a big wedding was…

Dara and I are planning on a hundred people to start with, which is both a lot of people and hardly enough. Instead of compromising on an invite list we split the guest count in half. She went through her Facebook friends list in one cross country flight, decided who to invite and sent out the save the dates.

I have been working on my invite list for two months and have no idea how to decide between my friends. I think some of this is because I’m going to be a forty year old bride and I’ve lived a lot of life. I have a ton of people I love enough to want to join us on that mountaintop on my special day.

There is so much great healing available to you this summer just by curating your beach bag / pool bag / commute bag / waiting for your kid while they’re in a class bag. I’m excited to share with you my top picks to thrive and heal this summer!

In people pleaser recovery we learn that what we must ultimately do is the work of knowing what is in our heart, what makes us sing, and what we want. I learned from Jeffrey Marsh that we do not need to be “nice” (doing what other people think we “should” or saying what they want to hear), but we can be kind. We can kindly say, “Hey, this isn’t right for me right now.” And we can be kind to ourselves and let go of the need for other’s approval.

It's pretty special to be a queer person with a Lesbian mom. It's nice to have that in common, even as my mom and I are as different as you can imagine a Glitter Mega Femme and a Tomboy can be (or, in astrology speak I'm a Capricorn and she's a Cancer--we are literally opposite signs). Last year on a visit to mom in her Lesbian village in the woods deep outside of Seattle, she proudly showed me her TomBoyX bathing suit covered in jelly fish. She has never been this excited about a bathing suit in my whole life, so I knew it had to be special.

In general, I find when I assume strangers are intending to be loving and kind it makes my experience of living in an oppressive world a lot easier for me.

Pronoia helps me keep my brain decluttered from other people’s judgments. I could spend a lot of time micro analyzing how strangers look at me or if I hear an audible sigh from someone seated next to me on a plane. Most of the time I assume their looks and sounds don’t have anything to do with me or my size. Maybe that’s not true, but probably it is true the majority of the time.

Last week I filmed the first workout video for Fat Kid Dance Party Aerobics and these words never hit so close to home. For those of you who have been reading my blog for any part of the last ten years, you know I’m on a healing journey. Healing from origins I can identify and some I cannot. The process of healing, I believe, is awakening to who you really are at your essence.

Somewhere along the line, I absorbed the idea that if I didn’t allow people to help me I could take full credit for my success. In the process of creating the video shoot I absolutely had to ask for help. I wanted a product that looked better than what I could film on my own and I felt like my audience deserved a truly kick-ass workout video.

Decision making is really hard for me sometimes. My perfectionism flares hard when I'm up against a deadline. Suddenly I'm afraid of everything being wrong and it makes even minor decisions seem like they will destroy everything good that exists in the world if I choose incorrectly.

This is not unlike college when every decision about every paragraph in my 20 page papers seemed unsurmountable until I was hard pressed by procrastination. Only now do I understand this to be fear-based procrastination and that I do it as a coping mechanism.

In justice circles, the general call is for shirts that go up to size 6X. This is difficult to find but I basically made it my mission to do it. I feel especially hurt by so-called intersectional feminist stores that don’t carry plus sizes, or barely make it to a 2X. I wanted to create a different experience for my customers.

I'm Bevin your Femmecee at QueerFatFemme.com, where I chronicle the relentless pursuit of my joy. Life is really great when you learn to love your body and step out of the closet! I believe all bodies are good bodies and work to make the world safe for people to love themselves. I blog about body liberation, travel, plus size fashion, sexuality, relationships, spirituality, authenticity, and having a really fun life following your own inner guidance. I love Dolly Parton, Miss Piggy, Dorothy Allison and Alice Walker. Grab a cup of tea, cozy up to your computer and enjoy!

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